Agents angling for a move isn't the same thing as clubs being happy with one and not wishing to dig their heels in.
I think the message out of the club should have been 'we'd like to keep (insert good young player here), but if the right offer comes along, we'll let you go', which I'm sure the players got loud and clear, but maybe they should have been clearer to us fans. I mean, I doubt they were 'planning' as such for Estupinan and Suarez to leave (who knows, they may have been happy to play for us if no offers were forthcoming), but there's interest there, so obviously we're not going to reject it out of hand
I don't think some people have come to terms with the realities of the situation. The club can't afford to keep everyone and are looking to reduce the wage bill significantly, resultingly those who don't want to be here will be sold. We can't put all our eggs in one basket in the hope for promotion due to the harsh realities of the financial climate now. We are going to lose some big players but who is to say we won't recruit replacements? In my opinion the biggest mistake by the club Was making a big deal of the South American duo. It gave us fans hope. With them possibly being sold part of the hope has gone.
Whilst our financial position is not great we are no different to all the other clubs and having saleable assets actually sees us in a stronger position than other clubs . However Norwich policy last season in hindsight was an absolute game changer for them .
What I don't understand is why we never seem to be ready for the new season. Other teams seem to manage to get most of their business done BEFORE the season starts, but year after year we never seem to be anywhere near ready for the start of the season, WHY??? We also nearly always have an extensive injury list before we have even kicked a ball in anger, whereas other teams seem to manage to get most of their players fit and ready to start the new season, I ask again WHY???
I can understand this season! I dont think anyone is really ready yet. Am I right in saying our assistant coaches are not even here yet? Extended transfer window, late finish to the season, relgation, contracts to work out, new manager etc.
Two pretty broad brush statements there. The one about transfers in particular doesn't ring true but I don't remember us having particularly long injury lists in recent pre-seasons either. This year it's blatantly obvious that some of the players who are 'ill' or 'injured' are actually just not wanting to play.
Our issue is TV revenue dropping by £50m+, no gate receipts, cost base needing to be realigned at a time when CV19 has killed the player market. Norwich's policy guaranteed that they didn't have a huge cost base to reduce and debt to service but effectively guaranteed their relegation from day 1. They had the same sort of season we had following the previous 2 times we were promoted to the prem. We could have again failed to invest in the squad and gone stright down in 16/17 instead of 5 years in the prem. We are now paying the price for that investment.
I think the dream of the Prem diverted Pozzo from the crux of the normal process...spouting off about being "the best of the rest" meant we did not sell Doucs when at the peak of his value, for example, which would have been the usual "Pozzo way". Because we were fixated with the (fundamentally impossible) idea of being permanently in the top 8 of the PL we kept the profit-earners for a season too long & so had insufficient funds to reinvest in the squad as a whole...hence no CBs of any use & relegation.
Fire sale you say? Good. Our squad has been rancid for a couple of years, and it has been particularly apparent over the last 18 months or so which has led to relegation. If loads of them want out then get them out. I've seen a huge amount of hype on here and elsewhere for players nobody really knows much about. If they are as good as they are hyped up to be then they won't want to be playing for Watford and certainly not in the Championship. The truth is the ones that are ok but nothing special, Quina, Wilmott etc, will make up the majority of our squad and hopefully a couple will step up and do something special such as Pedro or Sarr. We will finish between 10th and 14th this season and it'll take us a few seasons to get back up. Given what this squad of over rated mercenaries have dished up for the past couple of years I'd be amazed if anyone was against significant departures.
Watford will never again regularly be at the level that fans have become accustomed to in recent years without players of a ‘mercenary’ nature. Not with this owner in charge anyway. That’s not a call to remove the owner. It’s just pointing out he and his father have always had the same way of working. And it heavily involves employing players of that nature who can treat the club as a stepping stone rather than buying into the fabric of the club. If you want rid of these characters, and want a squad of players that love playing for Watford then be prepared that they won’t be doing it regularly at PL level again under this owner.
Totally agree with this. It's rare you get a good player who actually loves playing for the club. The last one was Luther, and even he moved away from the club when AC Milan came calling. Love playing for the club doesn't really exist and it never has. What you would prefer are players who want to be part of a team. Being Watford is immaterial. They want to be part of a side that will chase promotion. If we sell all notable players, then we'll only be left with players that can't really better themselves. Is that really what we're aiming for? Sure you can get some gems who are at the beginning of their career and they may accelerate you, but unless you're prepared to pay more money than similar clubs around you, you're not going to get quality players. Right now we have enough quality to get promoted with ease, but you've got to pay for it. You're playing against the odds if you decide to do this on the cheap. You might get lucky, but more often than not, you're going to come up short. This is what Watford have to guard against. If they want to get promoted, they're going to have to be brave and pay for it. It's a depressed market right now, so is the worst time to make wholesale changes. Most of our high profile players are under long enough contracts. We could easily keep hold of some of them, and sell in January or at the end of the season if we fail to get promotion. The market could even be better by then and you get better offers, especially in the January market.
What if all the players who missed the Boro game with an 'illness' actually had... an illness? There is a bug going around at the moment!
By the sounds of it, Dawson was genuinely ill, Perica has just signed so won't be off so he must be ill too, and I'd be very surprised if Penaranda gets an offer...
You don’t have to go back 40 years to find examples. Gomes genuinely loves this club. Cleverley, Foster, Chalobah aren’t mercenaries and have an emotional attachment with the club.
If we need to sell say four players to help reduce the debt to a more manageable level then is it greatly surprising that we have possibly made a lot more than four available? If you just said Doucoure, Deeney, Suarez and Estupinan can leave then you are putting all your eggs in one basket and if they are not all sold it creates an issue. If we put ten up for grabs then hopefully we will get what we want for 4 of them and then we can move on. I don't believe for one second we are actively looking to get rid of every saleable asset
When will this blasted fire sale end!? So far we have sold a vast number of our squad (one) and have barely any players left!
Good post. Football fans have to realise the players are very rarely fans themselves. They’re good at football because they’ve always played from a very young age rather than going to games as a supporter. If they admit an allegiance it’s almost always to one of the big teams they used to like on the telly. It’s really just a job to them.
Every single sentence is either incorrect, a sweeping generalisation or extreme exaggeration. Too much to correct hence the emoji.
What was incorrect about it? 99.9% chance of promotion if we keep the majority of our players? I'll give you that as an exaggeration. It's probably well above 80% though. It's fairly obvious that there is going to be a tipping point, where we sell more than 5/6 of our best players, and are no longer able to challenge at the top of the league. The difference between now and 2012, is the sharp drop in quality of the Udinese squad. Anyone they give us, without resorting to kidnapping, will be mediocre at Championship level. Can't see them buying cheap replacements that are of sufficient quality.
